The associations established after the Second World War were intended to
create bonds among intellectuals and to promote the discussion about their
function within society. This study investigates the reasons which lead to
said associations, and it analyses the intellectual’s perception of their own
role at that time and of the instruments they had to perform their civil task.
The Société européenne de culture (SEC), founded by Umberto Campagnolo in
1950, has been chosen as the case study. The PhD thesis is divided into a
methodology introduction, a story of culture organization between the end of
the Nineteenth Century and the Second World War and an analysis of the case
study. The investigation moves from a transnational and comparative
perspective, making a critical use of an analytical procedure first introduced
by Pierre Bourdieu and Gisèle Sapiro. A wide review of cultural magazines, as
well as of relevant archive material has been carried out. Campagnolo
conceived culture as a creation of values: since intellectuals were
responsible for conceiving ideas and symbols, they should maintain full
autonomy in the literary field. It was exactly in such dualism between
autonomy and engagement that the SEC’s originality can be traced. The
association was founded on the conviction that intellectuals would have been
able to win influence within society only by uniting their strength, though it
was the individual who had to commit himself/herself personally. The SEC’s
task was defined as ‘metaphysical’, meaning that it was linked to the spirit
which should have accompanied any cultural action. It was inferred that the
SEC and the Congress for cultural freedom (CCF) were competing for non-
political reasons. Actually, the SEC intended to safeguard the autonomy of
intellectual relations, while the CCF supported heteronomy, employing Art and
literature with a precise political aim. The contrast between these two
institutions was hence due to a different conception the intellectuals held
about their own role in society. Therefore, the associations under examination
did not represent an instrument with a univocal meaning: as demonstrated by
the analysis, they were devoid of any intrinsically autonomous or heteronymous
function with respect to the literary field. Furthermore, it is clearly
confirmed that intellectuals had a role of mediation, as they had always
affirmed. The development of intellectuals’ associations needs to be ascribed
to the social aspects of the writer’s or artist’s function, more than to
political factors related to the conflict between the blocks. Indeed, it was
less renowned intellectuals who showed particular involvement, and this means
that actual interest for the SEC was due to their social condition and to the
position they had in the intellectual field. In the attempt to understand the
reasons for the success of intellectuals’ associations in those years, it has
been hypothesized that a decline of the authority provided by traditional
mediation forms among intellectuals, masses and politics had occurred.
Moreover, the sources examined have shown how in Western Europe, after the
Cold War peak reached in the months of armed conflict in Korea, the conception
of engagement itself evolved. The acceptance of an intermediate position among
those expressed after the Second World War put a light on how ideological
differences could be smoothed, while the need for autonomy and defence of
intellectuals as expressed by associations remained.